


Hanging by a Moment

by Goldy



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Pining Jughead Jones, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27701606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: Pining!Juhgead and Betty and a chance encounter at Pop's. Pre-series.“Is, um… are you… is everything okay?” he asks.Even as the words leave his mouth, he knows with a sinking feeling that her answer is going to be about Archie. He does not want to know how Archie has disappointed her or let her down for the hundredth time. He does not need to see the way her mouth twitches upwards when she talks about him or the slight blush in her cheeks at his name. But he has opened the door and floated the question out there. He can’t take it back now.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 16
Kudos: 52
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	Hanging by a Moment

Jughead hunches over his laptop in a booth at Pop’s as he nurses a lukewarm mug of coffee and nibbles at a plate of fries. The diner is nearly empty, and he taps away at his keyboard in fingerless gloves. Outside, gusts of snow blow by the window. Even with the heat blasting inside Pop’s, the air feels cold and damp.

He takes a small sip of coffee, trying to make it last as long as possible. He dreads going back to the trailer. Once again, FP stumbled home in the middle of the day, drunk enough that he collapsed in a heap in the middle of the floor. As Jughead left—fled—his mother was shouting, threatening to take Jellybean and go, she had it this time.

No one called after him when he headed outside in thin fingerless gloves and a plaid jacket. He biked to Pop’s, his laptop tucked into a backpack, his fingers growing raw on the handles of the bike, and his tires skidding along the snowy roads.

At Pop’s, he managed to scrounge enough change from his pocket to afford a cup of coffee. Pop took pity on him and silently left him the plate of fries on the edge of his booth.

He looks up from his laptop when the bell chimes over the door. His gaze falls on Betty Cooper standing in the entrance. She closes the door behind her as a blast of frigid air sweeps through the diner. Her face is pink from the cold, but she is dressed far more sensibly than he is. She is wearing puffy ear muffs and a heavy coat that zips up to her neck.

She looks around the empty diner and then pauses when she sees Jughead tucked up into his booth with his laptop in front of him. Her eyes light up when they land on him. He tries to keep his hands still on the laptop, but already he feels the palms of his hands become sweatier. He hurriedly drops his hands to his lap and rubs his open gloved fingers against the top of his jeans as Betty heads towards him.

With her pink cheeks and puffy ear muffs, she looks positively adorable, and he hurriedly takes a sip of coffee in hopes that she does not catch him staring at her.

“Jughead,” she says brightly. “Hi!”

“Hi,” he croaks back. He does not smile. He tries to give the impression that he is quite happy sitting alone at his booth—he is, after all, by reputation a loner.

The reality is that being near Betty Cooper these days is an exquisite form of torture. Adrenaline flows through him at her mere presence, making his knees bounce from nervous energy under the table. He can only hope that she does not notice how quickly she has unsettled him.

She slides into the seat across from him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages!” she chirps. “What are you up to?”

He shrugs. He knows exactly how long it has been. Two months, three weeks. That was the last time he, Archie, and Betty got together at Archie’s house for Friday night pizza (Archie’s idea) and a 1970s horror movie marathon (his idea). Since their freshmen year of high school, those get togethers have become increasingly rare. When they started high school, Archie took up football, and with football came practices, and training, and team get-togethers.

He tells himself that he does not mind, that, in fact, it is _better_ this way. Less time with Archie means, by extension, less time with Betty. And he and Betty do not hang out together just the two of them. They have always been two people connected through a third person, their best friend: Archie Andrews. And less time with Betty means that he can hide _this_ —whatever these feelings are—from her ( _and_ from Archie).

Betty rests her hands on the table. She is wearing pink knitted mittens with stars woven into the fabric. She waits patiently for an answer.

“I’m writing,” he finally offers her. “I’m working on a novel.”

She nods, a slow up and down of her head, and it does not escape him that despite her bright smile, he eyes are sad and far away.

“Is, um… are you… is everything okay?” he asks.

Even as the words leave his mouth, he knows with a sinking feeling that her answer is going to be about Archie. He does not want to know how Archie has disappointed her or let her down for the hundredth time. He does not need to see the way her mouth twitches upwards when she talks about him or the slight blush in her cheeks at his name. But he has opened the door and floated the question out there. He can’t take it back now.

She shrugs her shoulders and then tucks a loose strand of hair that has escaped her ponytail back behind her ear with the tip of her mittened hands.

In a strained voice, she says, “It’s Archie.”

“Hmm,” he says and silently commends himself on his neutral tone.

“We were supposed to meet today,” says Betty. “He wanted help with that essay for Mr. Rothstein. You know, the one on Romeo and Juliet? I waited for him over an hour by his locker. Like an idiot.”

Jughead feels a stirring of sympathy. “He stood you up?”

“No, not exactly,” says Betty quickly. “He got the dates mixed up. He thought we were meeting tomorrow, not today. He had football practice today. It was just a mistake.”

Her voice is soft, but he catches the hurt in it and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying something he will regret. Of course Archie did not mean it. Of course it was a mistake—but it shows where his priorities are, does it not? Football comes first. Time with Reggie and the guys comes first. And Betty? Betty is dependable, Betty will always be there to help Archie with his homework, Betty will understand if he has football practice and can’t make their meeting.

And the worst part is, Betty knows it—it is written all over her face. But they both also know that come tomorrow afternoon, she will be by Archie’s locker again, once again ready to help him with his homework.

Something unpleasant rages inside of him. It makes him want to run from Pop’s, curl up in bed, and pull the covers over his head until he can wipe her look of longing and wistfulness from his mind. But another, larger part of him wants to stay, make her feel better, and spend just a few more moments in her company.

He clears his throat awkwardly. “Love, conflict, and family.” She blinks at him in confusion, and he hurriedly adds. “The three main themes of _Romeo and Juliet_.”

“Right,” she says. She nibbles thoughtfully on her bottom lip. “What would you choose, Juggie? Love or family?”

He thinks of what he left back home that afternoon—his father’s breath smelling like alcohol, his mother’s threats to leave them. Then he thinks of Betty’s pink cheeks and mittened hands and soft smile.

“Call me sentimental,” he says, “but I would choose love.”

“Me too,” she says. Her eyes shine with something that has his stomach flipping and he feels ridiculously proud of himself for briefly taking her mind off Archie.

A soft throat clearing interrupts the moment and they look up to find Pop standing over them with a takeout order. “Here you go, Betty,” he says gently. “I think Alice asked me to hold the fries, but our connection was not very good. Just to be sure, I made sure to include a couple of orders of fries with your salad tonight. I would not want to disappoint anyone in the Cooper household.”

“My dad will be grateful, Pop,” says Betty with a win in his direction. She takes the bag of food with her mittened hand and then stands up. She hovers awkwardly over the table as if suddenly realizing that Jughead is alone at dinnertime. He can see the gears turning in her mind as to whether she should be inviting him for dinner and, if she does, how Alice Cooper will react.

He quickly gives her an out, “I’ve got a lot of homework to catch up on,” he says. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

She bows her head gratefully. “Yeah,” she says. “It was really nice seeing you, Juggie. We should do it again sometime. Even if Archie is busy.”

“Sure,” he says easily. He reminds himself that they won’t, they never have, not without Archie there as the common bond between them. But still, something warm and pleasant blossoms across his chest.

“Okay,” she says. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

He shifts his gaze back to his computer and he listens as her footsteps fade away. When he is sure she is no longer looking, he lifts his gaze and watches as she exits the diner, the bell chiming, and the door closing behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> I somehow keep finding myself writing one-shots when I have about three WIPs to work on, but I just love imagining pre-series pining!Jughead. He is one of my favourite Jugheads and so underexplored. As always, I live for feedback, so if you liked it, please let me know! <33


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